Reddit mentions: The best us political science books

Other people have addressed the EU question, so I'll focus more on politics in general. There's some decent BBC media which covers current politics, it can sometimes be a bit tedious, some shows are better than others, and I certainly wouldn't recommend rigorously following all of them, but it's pretty good for familiarising yourself with the current state of affairs. Some TV and radio shows to follow -

Daily Politics - daily show analysing politics, which often gets high profile politicians on.

This Week - weekly show, airing after Question time, with a slightly comedic approach to political analysis.

Andrew Marr Show - weekly show, the one which senior ministers (the prime minister, the chancellor, the home secretary, etc) are most likely to appear on.

Question Time - weekly topical debate program, with questions from the audience directed towards politicians.

Any Questions - radio version of Question Time. Often not quite as annoying as Question time.

Today in Parliament - daily radio show covering news from parliament.

 

Parliament.uk and gov.uk are both great resources for learning how parliament and government functions, and learning about legislation. If you'd prefer a less fragmented read, such as a book, then Exploring British Politics by Garnett and Lynch seems like a good introductory source, though I will add the disclaimer that I've only used it occasionally as a reference book, and it is fairly pricey.

 

It can sometimes be difficult to understand the significance of things in politics without a basic grounding in the historical context, so I will recommend some more books to help with that (although much of the info can be found online). Two of the most important figures in recent British political history are Thatcher, and Blair. Charles Moore's Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume One is a good book for starting to understand the political context of the Thatcher era, although it is obviously quite biographical too, and being the first volume it only covers roughly the first third of her time in government. The comprehensive tome on Blair and his wide-ranging effect on the functioning of british politics is surely Seldon's Blair's Britain, 1997-2007, although I will warn you that is it most definitely a tome - incredibly thorough and a bit of a slog. The best way to approach this is probably to read the sections on things you are interested in, like the NHS, and leave the rest until you feel you want to learn about them. Sections of Seldon's Cameron at 10 are definitely worth a read if you want some more insight into the first Cameron ministry, and the coalition years.

 

I can't really recommend any comprehensive histories on the political parties (although what I've read of Tim Bale's The Conservatives Since 1945 is pretty good). One I would recommend is Goodwin's Revolt on the Right, which offers a fairly original analysis of the phenomenon that is UKIP. There's a more up-to-date follow-up to that, (UKIP: Inside the Campaign to Redraw the Map of British Politics), which I imagine is also pretty good, but I haven't read it. Familiarising yourself with general political ideologies (to rattle off an incomplete list: one nation conservatism, high toryism, classical liberalism, social liberalism, libertarianism, social democracy, democratic socialism, etc), how these relate to each other, and how they have manifested in the various 3 main parties over time is a must for understanding the parties and the political tensions within them. Wikipedia should suffice in filling in the details there (and in other places), for now.

>Interesting, I will look at the papers.

Lenz is a book, as a heads-up. This is the book. The others are papers.

>So they conclude: If the economy is bad, people are more likely to vote for the party which isn't the government at that moment. Did I understand this correctly?

Yep!

>Another comment stated (without any sources) that a difficult economic situation causes a shift to the extremes, you know anything about that?

I haven't seen anything on that. It may be true, but I wouldn't know.

>This is more a sociological question, so maybe you don't know, but does person which start earning less, change political preferences?

I'm going to assume you mean party choice in presidential elections when you talk about political preferences.

Yes...at least, that's what most people believe. Changes in real disposable income, according to Hibbs in "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections", is the "bread" portion of the title. Hibbs argues that changes in real disposable income were a significant portion of the vote shares for the incumbent party. In October 2008, Hibbs used the model of bread and peace in "Implications of the 'Bread and Peace' Model for the 2008 US Presidential Election" to predict that Republicans would get 48.2% of the two-party vote share. They got 46.3%. This doesn't mean he's wrong, but it does mean that bread and peace alone don't make for the total share. He addressed this in 2012 in "Obama's Reelection Prospects under “Bread and Peace” Voting in the 2012 US Presidential Election", noting that other factors influence elections. He said:

>Other factors of course influence presidential voting, potentially so dramatically that the systematic influence of Bread and Peace fundamentals may be overwhelmed. However, such events are transitory rather than persistent, they vary randomly from election to election, and they typically defy ex-ante objective measurement. The accounts by talking heads, and even analyses by thoughtful journalists and academic experts, are sometimes populated with stories revolving around election-specific idiosyncratic factors and fanciful ad-hoc variables whose true influence can be assessed scientifically only by statistical conditioning on persistent fundamentals.

>In 2008, Obama's race and McCain's age were prominent idiosyncratic factors, though in the end neither exerted perceptible net effect on the election outcome. Race will never again figure significantly in presidential politics, and that will be Obama's greatest positive legacy to democracy in America.4 In 2012 the main idiosyncratic issues appear to be gay marriage, immigration policy, Romney's religion and financial affairs, and the Affordable Care Act upheld on June 28, 2012 by the Supreme Court. On the personality dimension we have Romney's social awkwardness and distance by contrast to Obama's hip-cool. None of those factors played a role in earlier elections and all will have disappeared by 2016, and maybe even by Election Day 2012.

Still, he decided to use bread and peace to predict, in that October 2012 paper, that Obama would lose. However, he noted that other factors could push Obama's vote share as high as 52% easily. This is actually what Obama got. So while real disposable income and peace are not the only factors, there is definitely evidence that it matters in elections.

One thing to note is that people may not change their actual political preferences based on how the economy is doing. Voters are woefully ignorant of how tax policy works, how the economy works, and more. What Lenz argues that they actually do, is that they vote for those who they like, and then adopt their policy views. So if they dislike the incumbent party because of a bad economy (or because they are earning less), they are more likely to vote for the challenger. They may adopt the policy preferences of that challenger.

It's important to also note that there are some voters who likely never change their actual political preferences.

Numbers on how many and how this all works are unclear, because of the uncertainty and numerous factors that coalesce. But that hopefully helps.

But it probably is a union hack think tank. I don't see why highlighting the partisan motivation of a group means I'm automatically backing another group.

I can post something more holistic if you want me to. Maybe someone will wander through the wasteland of this comment chain and learn something from it:

1.
> More than a dozen prominent Washington research groups have received tens of millions of dollars from foreign governments in recent years while pushing United States government officials to adopt policies that often reflect the donors’ priorities, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

2.
> Even putting aside the legal issue, though, the article does an effective job of calling into question the idea that think tanks operate in an environment of scholarly independence. Through good old-fashioned detective work, the authors trace $92 million in donations from 64 foreign governments to 28 think tanks. The real total, they say, “is certainly more” — and I would add that if the discussion were expanded to include money from foreign industries as well, the picture would become even more spectacular. Consider just one example: the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, a division started in 1983, thanks in part to what Heritage’s then-president Edwin Feulner, Jr. called “substantial support from the private sector in both Korea and Taiwan.” Internal records from the period show that Heritage executives made fundraising trips to Asia, accepted donations from trade associations like the Far Eastern Textile Group and the Federation of Korean Industries, and attended a private dinner party at the home of Korean Prime Minister Shin-yong Lho (who gave a speech at Heritage in 1986).

3.
> There are close to 1,800 think tanks in the United States that employ over 20,000 scholars and executives who are dedicated to independent analysis of the major policy challenges facing the country. They do this, day in and day out, to help policymakers and the public make informed decisions on a wide range of policy problems. Sure there are those advocacy-oriented think tanks that engage in opinion mongering and advocacy, but the vast majority of the think tanks in the United States are committed to producing evidence-based, policy-relevant research. Moreover, they are the envy of the world – and other countries are constantly trying to learn from the American experience. I know because I have been approached numerous times by foreign countries seeking advice on establishing and growing think tanks.

4.
> These days, Heritage has a different crusade. The foundation’s president, the confrontational former Senator Jim DeMint, spent the last month touring the country, drawing cheering crowds as he demanded that Republican politicians insist that Obamacare be defunded—and denouncing those who wouldn’t go along. “Republicans are afraid,” DeMint told NPR. “And if they are, they need to be replaced.” The foundation’s three-year-old activism arm, Heritage Action, spent half a million dollars on online ads targeting 100 Republican House members who didn’t sign on to the defund crusade (“Tell Representative Tom Cole to Stop Funding Obamacare”).

5.
> We found at least 49 people who have simultaneously worked as lobbyists for outside entities while serving as top staff, directors or trustees of 20 of the 25 most influential think tanks in the United States, as ranked by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

6.
> Corporate lobbyists are everywhere in Washington. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 represent business. The largest companies now have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them. How did American businesses become so invested in politics? And what does all their money buy? Drawing on extensive data and original interviews with corporate lobbyists, The Business of America is Lobbying provides a fascinating and detailed picture of what corporations do in Washington, why they do it, and why it matters. Since the 1970s, a wave of new government regulations and declining economic conditions has mobilized business leaders, and companies have developed new political capacities. Managers soon began to see public policy as an opportunity, not just a threat. Ever since, corporate lobbying has become more pervasive, more proactive, and more particularistic. Lee Drutman argues that lobbyists drove this development by helping managers see the importance of politics and how proactive and aggressive engagement could help companies' bottom lines. Politics is messy, unpredictable, and more competitive than ever, but the growth of lobbying has driven several important changes that have increased the power of business in American politics. And now, the costs of effective lobbying have risen to a level that only larger businesses can typically afford.

Unity comes when people within the party know their leader cares for them.

Do you honestly think that Hillary (and Bill) Clinton care about you AT ALL?

Reality check: SHE DOESN'T. (AND HE DOESN'T.)

She'll do whatever to make it SEEM like she cares, but SHE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT US (99% of Americans).

She's in this presidential election to win so her rich donors can get their federal appointments on boards and commissions and their interests lobbied and heard in DC, and implement laws that will ONLY benefit them.

Hillary Clinton is a puppet that's being manipulated by corporate interests.
ie. Clinton Cash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYRUOd_QoM

https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469736845&sr=8-1&keywords=clinton+cash

If it comes down to Trump and Hillary, I am NOT voting for the lesser of the two evils that are Trump and Hillary.

Progress will only be made with someone like Jill Stein of the Green Party, who shares the most similar values and beliefs as those of Bernie Sanders.

If you are a true Bernie Sanders supporter, you would vote for Green Party's Jill Stein in 2016.

The only reason Bernie endorsed Hillary is to save his political career.
If Bernie had held out until the very end and refused to endorse Hillary at the Democratic National Convention, then establishment Democratic politicians would not like him, and this would further impede his influence and progress in the Senate, where establishment Democrats make up a good amount of the Senate seats.

So the next best thing we can do is to elect progressive leaders to Congress to impede Trump or Hillary from furthering their top 1% interests and fighting for the 99% (the American people).

JK: As the resident young person on this AMA, I’m happy to take this question! There have been a number of field experiments explicitly looking at effective tactics in increasing youth voter turnout.


Generally speaking, the tactics that work to engage older voters also tend to be effective at engaging younger voters. Door-to-door canvassing, high-quality phone calls, direct mail, and text messages have all been proven to cost-effectively increase youth voter turnout. On the other hand, tactics that you think might work particularly well for young people, namely email and online advertisements, have generally been totally ineffective. Just because young people may live online does not mean the online world is the best place to engage them in politics. Instead, the old-fashioned tactics, such as door-to-door canvassing, tend to work much better. For a summary of this research, I highly recommend Don Green and Alan Gerber’s book [Get Out the Vote] (https://www.amazon.com/Get-Out-Vote-Increase-Turnout/dp/081572568X).


Another incredibly important piece in engaging young people is registering them to vote. Registering a young person gets them on the list of voters which opens them up to being contacted by campaigns. Voting tends to be habit-forming, so getting someone to register and vote when they turn 18 increases their likelihood to remain voters throughout their entire lives. Check out these two papers if you’re interested: (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajps.12210/abstract) and (https://sites.duke.edu/hillygus/files/2014/07/Preregistration-10.22.14.pdf).

As someone who believes in science as much as you do... your ideas are really unscientific.


What you basically are saying is "I don't walk because I value eating healthy more than the physical ability to walk". You are just confirming the stupid belief of r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM has that centrists are just too dumb to look into any political issues.


You haven't stated a single political issue in any of your comments. Its like saying "I'm a centrist when it comes to the debate of neanderthals being a cousin subspecies of modern man because I value the discussion of the Higgs boson."
Just identify as a-political if you have no care for politics. Centrism implies something a lot deeper than what you are saying.


Politically Center ≠ Centrist ≠ A-Political


Centrists in today's meaning implies, by definition, center right beliefs.
Its a right-wing version of a liberal.
A liberal is someone who defaults to the center left except for key issues.
A centrist is someone who defaults to the center right except for key issues.


Based on what you've said so far I, ironically, do think you are a centrist. You just never learned the definition of the term. You are a centrist because you are center right and will side with people on the right-wing on almost all issues save a few key points.


What irks me is 2 things:
1- Your use of science to defend your political position.
2- The fact that you think you admire science yet approach social issues so unscientifically


There is a rich field of Social Sciences that you can draw from but instead you look at all of it and just say "oh, who cares. Planet is dying lul".


I used to be like you. I used to say things like "social sciences aren't real sciences" without ever taking a course or reading any of the works.


This weird dichotomy between social issues and science you have is the exact one that I had... then I grew up. I went to University and left that high-school way of thinking. I don't know how old you are but as someone who is, seemingly, just getting into politics let me tell you an important piece of advice:
Your political position or opinions don't matter nearly as much as the reason you have them.


You being in favor of locking up people addicted to crack doesn't matter as much as you wanting to do it because crack users tend to be black.


You are a centrist but your reasons are juvenile and unexplored. Most centrists and a lot of liberals (less than in the past) suffer from this and this is why the idea that they are stupid has become so popular. You could have all the same view points but if you gave me a half-way decent but of reasoning I would be a lot more respectful.


I will recommend this book to you. Its about policies but its a good 101 intro into practical political science. As someone who likes science it will be a good jumping into politics so you can bridge the two and gain a new ability to judge the people you maybe voting on.

A Little History of Science, by William Bynum. (Link) It's a little newer than Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, but on par with it in most respects. Covers the histories of medicine, astronomy, chemistry, the discovery of plate tectonics... pretty much all areas of science. Highly entertaining (particularly the section on anatomy and how early artists were painters by day and grave-robbers by night).

I also liked The Blogger Abides, by Chris Higgins (Link), which is an extremely practical guide to managing a freelance career. It's written for writers but is applicable to most freelance professions (photographers, consultants, etc.), and includes sections that most "be a writer" books wouldn't, like how to manage self-employment taxes and give pesky publicity people the brush without looking like an asshole.

For more traditional nonfic, I liked Deep State (link) about the government's secrecy industry; Agent Garbo (link), about a farmer who just decides to be a spy and ends up helping the Allies bring down the Nazis (it's insane); and literally anything written by Mary Roach -- even her tweets are great.

Eh.. I don't know about that. I mean, historically that has been the case, but ever since Citizen's United gerrymandering has taken on a whole new form. The republicans have mastered it and are now the king of ratfucking.

You would like this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467733922&sr=8-1&keywords=ratfucked

One of the reviews from amazon below

> - first, they provided funding to state congressional races in order to obtain veto-proof majorities in state legislatures. The republican party very strategically picked republican candidates in key states and provided them with almost unprecedented funding so that their campaigns and advertising budgets would overwhelm their opponents. The plan was spectacularly successful and resulted in republicans taking over large number of seats in a number of important state legislatures.
> - second, following the 2010 census, when the new census results mandated that state districts be re-evaluated, the republican controlled state legislatures used their power to very carefully re-draw the boundaries of enough districts in order to ensure that the voting from those districts would be strongly in favor of any future republican candidates.
> - third, in the following years when states elected their representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives, the newly constructed state districts performed as planned and brought significant numbers of new Republican faces to Washington D.C., bringing control of the House solidly into Republican hands.

In addition to the fact that it would demobilize that parties activists, like /u/vincentstaples already mentioned, because "single-issue voters" aren't really voting based on a single issue, they are using a single issue as a litmus test for ideology. If that test was taken away they'd just get another one.

According to Lau and Redlawsk (2006), single issue voters don't really care about only one issue. They just use politicians stance on some issue (i.e. abortion, marijuana, gay rights, etc...) as a heuristic for a specific bundle of other preferences. And it's effective too. For example, if I told you, "I am pro-choice," would you be able to reliably guess my opinion on the Affordable Care Act, gerrymandering, medical marijuana, or Kavanaugh's confirmation? You probably could make a pretty accurate guess. That's because my (hypothetical) support for women's choice is associated with my other preferences due to a phenomenon known as partisan conflict extension (Layman and Carsey 2002).

​

For example:

>I am Pro- choice.
>
>Pro-choice people are probably liberal.
>
>Liberals probably think X.
>
>Therefore: If I am pro-choice then I am probably a liberal.
>
>Therefore: If I am a liberal I probably think X.

​

People who are "single-issue" voters are really no less partisan than anyone else. Even "independents" predominantly vote for one party over the other (V.O. Key 1966, Klar 2016). The only difference, according to Lau and Redlawsk, is that single-issue voters use a tiny-amount information in one key area and about only one candidate to determine if that candidate is sufficiently conservative or liberal (Republican or Democrat). Meaning: a Low-information, Low Comparability strategy.

Interestingly, low information voting was more effective at determining the candidate closest to the voters own naive-preferences than "rational-actor" strategy (high information, high comparability) for all but the most politically knowledgeable voters. Lau and Redlawsk suggest this is because voters don't know how to prioritize and process the huge amount of information available to them in the "rational actor" strategy. Voting for your party ID (low information, high comparability) was actually the most effective strategy for choosing the candidate that best matched their net preferences.

So what does this mean to your question? It means that if a party switched positions on, for example, abortion and the Democrats became "pro-life" then "pro-life" would stop being a useful proxy for "Republican" and those single issue voters would just select a different heuristic.

​

http://vanityfair.com/online/eichenwald/2013/06/prism-isnt-data-mining-NSA-scandal

>Now, anyone who discusses this process without also mentioning minimization procedures is also either very uninformed or intentionally hyping the story. Minimization is a term of art in the world of NSA intercepts which essentially means “stay out of American citizen’s business.” If information about specific Americans (or even foreigners inside the United States) is captured, those details must be removed from all records and cannot be shared with any other entity in the government unless it is necessary to understand and interpret related foreign intelligence or to protect lives from criminal threats. But passing intelligence information to criminal investigators requires several layers of review and is not easily approved; minimization procedures are meant to insure that information collected by the NSA isn’t used in routine criminal investigations.

https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/347888405981569025

>Sigh. These last 2 stories have been little more than boilerplate recitation of Sec 702. I doubt ill persuade u, but so be it... are anonymized, meaning the info has been run through an algorithm that spits out an anonymous designator, such as XDSVC...

Marc Anbinder

Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1118146689/ref=cm_sw_r_an_am_ap_am_us?ie=UTF8

https://twitter.com/marcambinder/status/348144189378281472

>as I said, I think the programs are good. Transparency by/ trust in USG lacking



Joshua Foust

http://prospect.org/article/three-guiding-principles-nsa-reform
>Yet, to even begin the discussion of reform, we have to grapple with why things got to where they are. One document published in the Guardian shows a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court order for Verizon, the telecommunications giant, to hand over phone metadata (telephone numbers, call length, and location). The Supreme Court ruled in 1979 that the Fourth Amendment does not protect such metadata. Similarly, the PRISM data-mining program, which automates access to Internet company databases, was, misreporting aside, publicly discussed as a software platform used by the military and intelligence community for many years

http://joshuafoust.com/can-the-nsa-search-for-americans-who-knows

>The Committee report says the IC and DOJ requested additional queries authorities, which the Committee considered then rejected while studies of existing capabilities were finished. While Marcy is correct that this passage shows the Intelligence Community requested the ability to search on this data, the text of the report also shows that the Committee rejected that request and made the Intelligence Community and Department of Justice reaffirm that any queries adhere to the letter of the law and not circumvent “the general requirement to obtain a court order.

Bob Cesca

http://bobcesca.thedailybanter.com/blog-archives/2013/06/greenwalds-latest-snowden-leak.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=greenwalds-latest-snowden-leak

>But here’s the most revealing part of Greenwald’s article: the program was stopped by the Obama administration in 2011. As Charles Johnson tweeted yesterday, the article’s headline could actually be “Obama discontinued NSA email program started under Bush.”

>Furthermore, Greenwald wrote: “It did not include the content of emails.” The NSA only collected metadata, authorized by bulk FISA court warrants. The program, like everything else, sought overseas communications, and those communications might have inadvertently included some data from US persons connected with the overseas emails. And, again, reminder: any data from US persons that’s inadvertently collected is anonymized, encrypted and destroyed. It’s only decrypted with an individual warrant.



And from the comments sections of the last:

>Just before that article went up, Glenn and Ackermann had another one go up, "How the NSA is still harvesting your online data". Now when you read that you instantly think any email we send here in the U.S. is going to the NSA. Well there's nothing but speculation in that article about that, but the kicker they are focusing on is that the NSA bragged about processing their "trillionth" piece of metadata in 2012. In 2009 it was estimated the 294 billion emails were sent globally every single day, so that trillion is hardly anything, when you consider that 294 billion per day translates to about 90 trillion PER YEAR.


Another Edit:

Just found a great AMA!

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1h6r3v/iama_former_nsa_agent_turned_educatorauthor_amaa/

Also FYI I have posted this comment multiple times because I think there is a lot of misinformation out there.

Disclosure I also work on the helpdesk for a gov agency that is no way affiliated with anything military etc....

Ok "certainty" overstates it. What can be mathematically proven is that in plurality voting, it's in each voter's best interest to vote for his favorite of the two candidates most likely to win. Since voters tend to vote strategically, plurality voting has a strong tendency towards two-party dominance; this is Duverger's Law.

Proportional representation and some voting systems like approval or range voting don't have this problem.

Also see the book Gaming the Vote by William Poundstone.

I can't seem to find an ebook of either of these, but there are probably PDFs out there. The paperback copies are pretty cheap - and used copies run under $10. They're both seminal and deeply important texts (IMHO):

• "[Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making](http://www.amazon.com/Policy-Paradox-Political-Decision-Making/dp/0393912728/ref=sr_1_1?
  s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381329839&sr=1-1&keywords=policy+paradox)" - Deborah Stone
  
• "Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies" - John Kingdon
  
  Edit: Regarding the Ed Policy component, neither one of these really tackles too much of that particular subject, but are great at explaining the processes and levers of policy. For ed policy specific, there a $10 Kindle edition of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System" by Diane Ravitch, which is supposed to be great. I haven't read it myself - but many people who I respect deeply think her ed policy analysis and insight on modern reforms is spectacular. She blogs here.

Regarding your 2: there are five different scandals linked on that linked page alone, just from the time Bill was President. There have also been many scandals she's faced since that time. You don't consider that a problem, seriously? They say that whenever you see one cockroach you should conclude that there are several nearby. So what then should we conclude when we see several cockroaches, if not that there's an infestation?

I can see three main possibilities: either she is an innocent person and keeps getting accused of illegal actions due to the worst luck in the universe, or there's a far reaching conspiracy focusing on manufacturing false claims against her specifically (much more often than against any other potential target), or she is guilty but calls in favors and destroys relevant evidence in order to get away with things she shouldn't be able to get away with.

Which seems the most probable to you: a corrupt politician getting away with it, a powerful conspiracy against a politician existing but somehow failing over and over and over again to get rid of her, or someone innocent of all wrongdoing repeatedly facing scandals for absolutely no reason?

If you don't think it's a big deal when politicians break laws in order to make themselves and their friends money, I'm astonished. Corruption is the ultimate form of rent seeking, and the proximate cause of highly extractive institutions. Additionally, when someone who's corrupt is in power, they'll tend to bring other rent seekers in their wake. They are likely to sympathize with their friends promoting special interest groups, rather than to dispassionately evaluate the costs and benefits of policies for the average citizen. I think the laws that we do have are permissive enough as it is. I'd much prefer a candidate who seeks to strengthen and broaden these laws in order to give government policymakers good incentives, over a candidate who prefers to weaken them, circumvent them, or break them.

The cattle controversy is the one I'm most familiar with. She got a hundred fold return shorting the cattle futures market during a time when the cattle futures market was rising. Expert economists, using a model "stated to give the hypothetical investor the benefit of the doubt... concluded that the odds of such a return happening were at best 1 in 31 trillion." Whatever the justice system might or might not require, I don't need any more evidence than that. An exact description of how she did it seems unnecessary, in my view, when such an implausible outcome occurring without corruption is essentially impossible. I am very much inclined to think that if she were a normal person, rather than a rich white ex first lady who has lots of friends and knows lots of secrets, one of these scandals would have landed her in jail by now. Politicians are corrupt all the time, and get away with it all the time, and she shows every possible sign of being typical in that regard.

I am not saying that because she is corrupt, she's automatically worse than any other possible candidate running for the presidency. I'd prefer Clinton to Trump, certainly, and am essentially indifferent between her and Sanders. However, I do think that it's shameful to our legal system that someone like that is allowed to walk free, and shameful to democracy in general that she's the best candidate our electoral system has managed to produce for us this year. It has become mainstream for people to mock and insult the Republicans for having Trump leading the polls, and the Republicans deserve it, but if the world made sense the Democrats would be receiving similar insults too, and just as frequently, but they are not.

It's not just Hillary I think is corrupt, though, lest you think this is all coming from a place of partisan bias. Karl Rove belongs in jail too. As do many other "respectable" people who've helped guide our country, in both the major political parties, whose names are too numerous and controversial for me to list here.

Certainly true, but it's also pretty hard to agree on which new voting system should be used if we ever switch; they're all better than FPTP, but all have some major problem that makes them sound like a poor choice (even if it's an improvement overall). In the case of IRV (single-winner STV), you get weirdness where one candidate would win, but then a few new people decide to vote for them and now suddenly they lose because of the shift in how other candidates get eliminated.

Gaming the Vote did a good job of making me fear all voting systems. Every time they described a new one I thought "well, that sounds quite good", and then the next page would be "let me tell you how this is secretly terrible". STV is my personal favorite (although I think range voting was the one generally considered to give the best results), but the whole thing is absurdly complicated

Peter Schweizer was a foreign policy advisor to Sarah Palin. He works with Andrew Breitbart and has authored several books with titles such as Makers and Takers: Why conservatives work harder, feel happier, have closer families, take fewer drugs, give more generously, value honesty more, are less materialistic.

But I don't bring this up to discredit the man. I think it's great to see a person of his character addressing such a pertinent issue like insider trading in Congress. The fact that it is him delivering this message encourages unity between conservatives and liberals so that we can more effectively confront the extensive corruption within our state and corporate systems.

Edit: This story was also covered well by Newsweek. Peter Schweizer's new book, on this topic and based on his independent research, is Throw Them All Out.

For a good analysis of various voting systems and their advantages/disadvantages, check out Gaming the Vote. The author comes to the conclusion that Range Voting is the best, which is something like giving each candidate a rating between 1 and 10.

My personal preference is Approval Voting just because it's so damn simple. It's easy for voters to understand, easy to count, and easy to implement either on paper or electronically. Although I would support almost any alternative to the current plurality voting which is basically the worst of all systems.

The analysis of the stock transactions was put forward in a book by Peter Schweizer, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

The book, entitled "Throw Them All Out", and subtitled How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison, was featured in a recent "60 Minutes" investigation that gained a lot of attention.

In it, Schweizer said McDermott "bet big" by buying 2,000 shares in ID Biomedical of Quebec for $10 apiece in June 2004. That was six weeks before the House of Representatives passed the $5.6 billion bill dubbed Project Bioshield. Shares in the company subsequently tripled before McDermott sold them in September 2005.

Asked if he was accusing Rep. McDermott of insider trading, book author Schweizer said, "it is highly unethical to purchase stock in a bill you are supporting and then enjoy the profits when the corporate recipients see their stock climb."

Also named in the book as beneficiaries of cronyism and insider tips are Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Approval is great, range is better though! That being said, pretty much anything is better than plurality. If you're really interested in this kind of stuff, William Poundstone's "Gaming the Vote" is a great intro to different voting systems. It gives background on how the systems came about, and how they work. It can get a little long winded at times, but I'd definitely recommend it!

That's a big myth, but it's only "capitalism all the way" if it benefits corporations -- things tend to get very pampered, protective and socialist if a regulation helps corporations. Great books on the subject: The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer, and Republic, Lost.

I eagerly wait their reply. The movie was narrated and based on the book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. I mean the title sounds like the book has already made up the author's mind, and I guess it has... I have not read the book, but it is on my list now. I'd like to see the counterpoints, but the way it is portrayed in the video, the evidence is pretty damning.

Most of the situations the film covers involve the Clinton Foundation or Bill Clinton getting massive speaking fees from foreign countries or businessmen who have an issue being debated by the State Dept. and soon after a check arrives, they get an agreement approved. It's A LOT of that. As the author states in the film: one or two times...OK, maybe coincidence, but it seems to happen A LOT. Beyond that, the deals she agrees to are part and parcel against the progressive values she spews out of her mouth (i.e. human rights, woman's rights, environment, etc.) ....all things she claims she fights for but then proffers favors for shady characters in exchange for cold hard cash.

+22Chuckles:

For getting Colorado to 100% renewable energy, how do you plan to get there? Currently Colorado uses quite a bit of coal, and nation wide natural gas is pushing coal out, as it is cheaper. Will you continue with fracking in Colorado, in the short term at least, to try push coal power plants out of operation? What is the end game for 100% renewable? Would you want to implement a carbon tax, such as in Bolder, have a cap and trade system, or ban all forms of green house emissions? How would this effect the cross national trucking industry? What forms of renewable would you focus on, and how would Colorado get the infrastructure for those renewable or would Colorado start importing electricity?

In your drive for free preschool and full day kindergarten are you basing it off of Hillary Clinton's proposals? Will you work with major economists in the field such as Raj Chetty?

Why exactly do you want Colorado companies to have employees to participate in ownership/profit sharing? How do you wish to implement this? What consequences for national, or international companies be?

What other policy proposals are you looking at pursuing?

Have you read, or interested in reading Show Me The Evidence?

Do you still play League? What video games do you play?

For getting Colorado to 100% renewable energy, how do you plan to get there? Currently Colorado uses quite a bit of coal, and nation wide natural gas is pushing coal out, as it is cheaper. Will you continue with fracking in Colorado, in the short term at least, to try push coal power plants out of operation? What is the end game for 100% renewable? Would you want to implement a carbon tax, such as in Bolder, have a cap and trade system, or ban all forms of green house emissions? How would this effect the cross national trucking industry? What forms of renewable would you focus on, and how would Colorado get the infrastructure for those renewable or would Colorado start importing electricity?

In your drive for free preschool and full day kindergarten are you basing it off of Hillary Clinton's proposals? Will you work with major economists in the field such as Raj Chetty?

Why exactly do you want Colorado companies to have employees to participate in ownership/profit sharing? How do you wish to implement this? What consequences for national, or international companies be?

What other policy proposals are you looking at pursuing?

Have you read, or interested in reading Show Me The Evidence?

Do you still play League? What video games do you play?

>No, what I'm saying is the means are totally justified, and the ends will be what they are.

Wow. This is some truly terrifying, Nazi level rhetoric.

>I think Donald Trump is in hock to the Russians.

So much for innocent until proven guilty.

>After what Trump did in the 1990s, no American bank wanted to work with him and he had to go to Russia to get cash.

You mean while he was a democrat?

>If he's capable of separating that from his duties as Commander in Chief, god bless him

He literally just outlined out his plans for doing this.

>And, frankly, his views on Russia are extreme in the American political landscape, so my expectations for him in the investigations aren't so high right now.

Oh, so now the democrats are the hawks? Interesting.

> I care far more about good results than I do about good process.

Glad to hear you are for stop and frisk! Worked in NY!

>Hasn't always been that way, but then I got into international business at the executive management level, and I got a family. In short, I grew up.

Please. You're middle management material...

>This is me being a patriot and wanting to make sure that my government isn't, in fact, a puppet to a foreign power.

Ever stop to think that YOUR reaction is actually the one the Russians want to invoke?

Go read a book from one of the foremost experts on the subject - the highest ranking Soviet Intelligence Officer ever to defect to the US:

https://www.amazon.com/Disinformation-Strategies-Undermining-Attacking-Promoting-ebook/dp/B00D99V2RY

A patriot, you are not. Soldiers who defend the president/country, regardless of political persuasion are patriots. Are you nothing close to the person you imagine yourself to be.

Besides, Clinton is already in Russia's pocket. The UraniumOne deal proved that.

https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296

> If you are an experienced politician, you know that you never get too far ahead of the populace.

I would mostly agree in this particular case, but to be more precise, that's only true for those few issues where large numbers of people actually have crystallized opinions and care passionately about them -- like guns, gays, and abortion.

On most issues, though, people choose a candidate first and then just follow whatever policy positions that candidate supports.

All benefits go really rich people and corporations.

Why? Because really rich people and corporations are getting better and better at buying off our political system. (Link.)

Thanks for sharing this!

In a similar vein, this book talks specifically about the Republican plan to control all state legislatures through systematic redistricting starting in 2008. They've been immensely successful in their plan, called REDMAP. (yes - REDMAP - Redistricting Majority Project)

The Amazon excerpts of the introduction give a good sense of the book, then a state by state breakdown of their actions starting in 2008. Wake County libraries have this book - I'd recommend it.

https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628

Here is a short reading list that should give you the essentials:

Some of these will read like stories, others are more academic in nature. There is both Canadian and American material included. overall, you should get a pretty good impression of how political campaigns are planned and how they actually roll out.

1. Burton, M.J. & Shea, D.M. (2010). Campaign craft: The strategies, tactics, and art of political campaign management (4th ed.). Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers. https://www.amazon.com/Campaign-Craft-Strategies-Political-Management/dp/031338343X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1479856930&sr=8-2&keywords=campaign+craft
   
   
2. Green, D.P. & Gerber, A.S. (2015). Get out the vote: How to increase voter turnout (3rd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. https://www.amazon.com/Get-Out-Vote-Increase-Turnout/dp/081572568X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479857921&sr=1-1&keywords=get+out+the+vote+how+to+increase+voter+turnout
   
   
3. Thurber, J.A. & Nelson, C.J. (Eds.) (2014). Campaigns and elections American style: Transforming American politics (4th ed.). Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. https://www.amazon.com/Campaigns-Elections-American-Transforming-Politics/dp/0813348358/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479857939&sr=1-1&keywords=Campaign+And+Elections+American
   
   
4. Faucheux, R.A. (Ed.) (2003). Winning elections: Political campaign management, strategy, and tactics. New York: M. Evans & Company. https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Elections-Political-Campaign-Management/dp/1590770269/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479857978&sr=1-1&keywords=Winning+elections%3A+Political+campaign+management%2C+strategy%2C+and+tactics
   
   
5. Issenberg, S. (2012). The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. New York: Broadway Books. https://www.amazon.com/Victory-Lab-Science-Winning-Campaigns/dp/0307954803/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479858008&sr=1-1&keywords=the+victory+lab+the+secret+science+of+winning+campaigns
   
   
6. Laschinger, J. (2016). Campaign Confessions: Tales from the War Rooms of Politics. Toronto: Dundurn. https://www.amazon.com/Campaign-Confessions-Tales-Rooms-Politics/dp/1459736532/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479858025&sr=1-1&keywords=campaign+confessions
   
   
7. Delacourt, S. (2013). Shopping for Votes: How Politicians Choose us and we Choose them. Madeira Park, BC: Douglas and McIntyre. https://www.amazon.com/Shopping-Votes-Politicians-Choose-Them/dp/1771621095/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1479858059&sr=1-1&keywords=Shopping+for+votes

Attempting to blame democrat migration for the state of gerrymandered districts is weak tea and intellectually dishonest. While gerrymandering has always existed in our country, it has never been conducted on the scale which the GOP engaged in gerrymandering after the 2010 census and tea party rise to power. All of this is well documented in this book which shows a coordinated effort by the GOP and their donors to subvert democracy through gerrymandering of congressional districts. We are not only talking about red states here either but also blue and purple states where the majority of voters are dem but are represented primarily by republicans since 2010.

Fortunately gerrymandering is fairly easy to prove in court and we have seen a number of successful legal challenges to the practice over the last year. If this continues, dems may not have such a steep road to re-taking the house, especially when one considers the recent results in special elections...

The book's a little old now but there's a great book called Get Out The Vote that shows the most effective way of reaching voters.

https://smile.amazon.com/Get-Out-Vote-Increase-Turnout/dp/081572568X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=get+out+the+vote&qid=1574258585&sr=8-1

"Gaming the Vote" is a great read for anyone interested. It covers history and math of voting, and makes a strong case for both range and approval voting. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K154R0/

Stellar Wind called for the very Utah data center the NSA is in the process of finishing. Not closing. Not turning into a warehouse for outdated office equipment. Nor is the government re-purposing all the storage and computing power for some serious online gaming.

The Program is now called Ragtime or Ragtime-P. Status is operational. As is X-Keyscore. This may have been a redesign of Stellar Wind to meet metadata provisions put forth by Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

== Source ==

Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry Details Ragtime-A US-based interception of all foreign-to-foreign, Ragtime-B intercepts from foreign governments that transits through the US, Ragtime-C counterproliferation actvities and Ragtime-P which is all domestic.

Elliot Spitzer's use of prostitutes, General Petraeus or just mundane chit-chat that has not been flagged. Not PRISM alone, it's Ragtime.

>Faulk described the personal nature of many of the calls, and how he and his colleagues would encourage each other to listen into a call where “there’s good phone sex” or “some colonel making pillow talk.”

> Political ratfuckery is a fun way to describe this.

> Looks like I know what I'm reading up on today in my free time.

Hey look, two birds with one stone!

I highly suggest you review some information regarding this system and the pros / cons to it.

Namely, you should look at the history and current struggle of voting rights and gerrymandering. NC is in the news right now for exactly these reasons. RatF**ked: Why your vote doesn't count and Give Us The Ballot are two relatively recent books that describe a lot of the issues voter equality faces. The reality here is that the GOP is gaming the system while they have the ability to, in order to keep that ability without evolving. So, to make this change like you suggest which is supposed to be easy, it is an uphill battle where Democrats have to essentially win elections that have been heavily slanted towards the other side. If they do win, they need support from the rest of the governing body at that level which is struggling from the same problem, as you can see with KY. Despite Beshear's victory, the GOP is now trying to strip him of a lot of governing powers to limit effectiveness.

As a second point here, the government is not designed for rapid change. The idea that it is difficult to do so is an intended outcome; hypothetically, the majority of proposals will get shot down and only the "best" make it through. Constitutional amendments require time and lots of energy to implement, and as such, the removal of the electoral college is going to be extremely difficult. And to an extent, this is a good thing. Think of how easy it would be to strip voter rights, etc, if you could easily change the Constitution. The unfortunate reality is that we live in an era of instant gratification where people want change, want it now, and forget about it 10 minutes later. This will take time, and people have to keep at it for years, gradually taking two steps forward and one step back.

>How could changing the outcome of an election not lead to impeachment?

Putin probably cannot be impeached

>Hillary Clinton would have won 2016 had the Russians not intervened.

and asked Hillary to sell them the uranium which was exposed in

Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich

which helped Trump win

I'm not quite done with it yet, but I was listening to Clinton Cash over the weekend. In addition to this, they raise the question of why all of these foreign entities need to funnel money through the Clinton Foundation at all rather than simply donating the money to local charities.

I'm only on chapter 7 or 8 so far, but they also discuss how much the Clintons' income for speeches increased during Hillary's tenure as SoS and how she used a special rule that had previously been used to employ experts like scientists to allow operatives to work for the State Department and the Clinton Foundation simultaneously.

It's pretty disgusting. It's as nakedly corrupt as you could possibly want without a full-throated admission of guilt. This is the Clintons' stock in trade. I cannot fathom how all of the liberals who bitched about the war crimes of the Bush administration and the foul influence of money in politics (typically vis a vis the Koch brothers) can possibly support this woman. If I had to dream up a character that embodied corruption I would never be able to supply you with a sketch more on the nose than Hillary Clinton.

I think Scott Adams is right. The only thing potentially stopping Trump is the "crazy racist" charge. If he can neutralize that, he wins in a landslide. There's simply no reason to support Hillary Clinton on the merits and a mountain of objective reasons to oppose her every holding any public office ever again.

It's all part of the plan. This isn't coincidence, and this isn't an isolated event special to Wisconsin.

Get your hands on the book Ratf**ked.

It's quite the eye opener into how the Republican party plotted and pulled off a plan to take over the country, and they pulled it off without a hitch.

Voter suppression, gerrymandering on a level never seen before, and much more was done between 2010 and 2016 to ensure Republicans took control of everything they could. It's going to have ripple effects down the line for decades.

Two terrific books on the subject:

• With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful (Glenn Greenwald)
  http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Justice-Some-Equality-Powerful-ebook/dp/B00603PI3U/
  
• Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It (Lawrence Lessig)
  http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress--/dp/0446576441/
  
  Obligatory link to Wolf PAC: http://www.wolf-pac.com

Yes, Ratfucked summarizes the story pretty well

[Amazon link] (https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497177188&sr=8-1&keywords=ratfucked)

>There is also the issue of whether we can trust the Mayday PAC to stay as focused as they claim

Given the primary name behind it, I'm standing behind them (I donated some btc to the cause). Given Lawrence Lessig's history, he can stay pretty darn focused.

Take some time to read up on him, and the uphill (some would say Sisyphean) battles he's fought over the past couple of decades.

> whether their criteria for determining who the Mayday PAC will support ends up correlating to other political issues

That's kind of the point - it doesn't really need to correlate to other political issues. The only issue they're focused on is campaign finance reform. All other points, to them, are moot - because when the reform is in, a real discussion on those points can finally happen. They might support a pro-life pro-death penalty anti-immigration candidate in an election against another pro-life pro-death penalty anti-immigration candidate ... as long as the former candidate is for finance reform, and the latter is not.

Because until the (aboveboard, but no less) corruption is debrided, a real discussion on those topics, free from corrupting influences, cannot happen.

> an issue that everyone has strong opinions about despite the fact that most people only have an extremely limited understanding of the details.

That's right. A lot of what they're going up against is public ignorance - I have a feeling they will be spending just as much, if not more, on public education of the issue in battleground districts/states than on direct candidate endorsement.

> That's great, but let me know when you have drafted the motherhood and apple pie bill so I can actually understand what this means.

But the bill cannot be drafted until the candidates are in. You're putting the cart before the horse, here, to torture another analogy.

Some resources:

https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWfCqsFP05A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aavBn_1llpc

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Lost-Money-Corrupts-Congress--/dp/0446576441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406230329&sr=8-1&keywords=lawrence+lessig

http://www.amazon.com/Lesterland-Corruption-Congress-Books-Book-ebook/dp/B00C3LLYM2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1406230329&sr=8-3&keywords=lawrence+lessig

And something not really about politics and campaign finance, but his (enlightened) views on intellectual property (also covers the SCOTUS case he lost - and why he thinks he lost - in re perpetual copyrights):

http://www.amazon.com/Free-Culture-Nature-Future-Creativity-ebook/dp/B000OCXHM2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1406230329&sr=8-4&keywords=lawrence+lessig

If you're looking for a textbook, I had to read Logic of American Politics for an intro to american politics class in college and it was pretty smooth reading and should give you an excellent basis for understanding today's politics.

For IMO the best explanation of the problem and its possible solutions read Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig. Please also join us at the related /r/rootstrikers

Andrew Bacevich The Limits of Power. A blunt, concise, and brilliant look at American imperialism from the mid-20th century until now. I would vote for this guy as a presidential candidate regardless of party.

David Daley launched a book earlier this year called "Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy"

The title sounds like a crazy conspiracy... because it is. It chronicles the literally secret plan flawlessly executed by republicans in anticipation of the 2012 elections and how we're now stuck with this for decades.

There was an excellent interview on NPR's Fresh Air with the author a few weeks ago. Moneyball applied to politics as they call it, complete with outside consultants, computer modeling, secrecy and everything.

The amount spent on lobbying each year is 5 billion, if you estimate the undisclosed lobbying (current disclosure laws are pretty weak) as being about equal to disclosed expenses. (Which is a good estimate according to "The Business of America is Lobbying".) EVERY YEAR. And it's worth every penny.

Prior to Quantitative Easing 1 (QE1), "there were 18 Federal Reserve Board members who were previously high-level executives of the “too big to fails” that were in line to receive the bailouts, according to a GAO report. And 76 percent of Fed board members also own or owned stock in those same institutions."

"Those (top 6 financial) entities spend billions of dollars to lobby Congress and finance Congressional campaigns and buy Presidents (they own both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney)."

Source

Sounds like plenty of corrupt breathing down of throats already.

If you haven't read Throw Them All Out, I highly recommend it. Both sides are corrupt as the day is long, and the Federal Reserve is just another tool of that corruption.

While I'm glad this came out now, really credit should be going to David Daley who detailed this in Ratf**cked, which was published in July of 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0CQK1sKv8Y

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/21/former-haitian-senate-president-world-trusted-clintons-help-haitian-people-deceived/

(you should read this) https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474489652&sr=8-1&keywords=clinton+cash

(you should watch this) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmMe-2qaSss

Now I feel that it bears mentioning that I did say IIRC because I was on my phone and didn't feel like finding sources. As a result my statement wasn't completely accurate. They didn't STEAL 14.2 billion, they siphoned it. They lined their pockets with it while supplying "aid". So I guess in that sense, you're right. Congrats. Worth stalking me for a couple days?

But you know what? Even if you can prove definitively that they didn't directly steal 14.2 billion from the Haitian relief fund, there is simply too much blood on their hands and too much mud in the water for me to possibly concede that they aren't evil. The child trafficking, the e-mails, Bill's countless rape allegations, Project Veritas, voting fraud, her seizures, her shady af past, Lolita express, her ties to Saudi Arabia AND Russia (uranium deal), her collusion with MSM during the election, her collusion with the DNC to steal the election from Bernie, her ties to pedophiles and suspected pedophiles.

So yeah good job bud, you won an argument based on a technicality.

We done here?

https://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Out-Politicians/dp/0547573146

This book is incredible, it probably has a Republican bias to some extent but well worth reading. The legal standard for insider trading among US politicians is completely different from what you’d find in business.

I recommend a book called "Rat F*cked," by David Daley, which details how Republicans took advantage of the 2010 Census through their "REDMAP" plan. Every 10 years, we redraw districts once we get new data from the census. While Democrats have a decided technological advantage on GOTV, Republicans applied that same type of data analytics to Gerrymandering, capturing many state houses which then decide federal level districting plans.

The Logic of American Politics I know this book is expensive, but as a textbook it is one of the most comprehensive and understandable introductions to the concepts and theory behind American politics. I had this book in my pol 1 class in college. I took it out after working a couple years on campaigns and in state government, only to find they had accurately described the competing interests of different actors and the forces that they can exert, both institutionally and informally.

If you are interested in more the function of politics rather than its subject matter of policy, then here is a decent list of foundational texts to get you started:

On theory:

The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers


Democracy in America


On Campaigning:

What it takes


Game Change


Campaigns and Elections- American Style


On Legislating/Governing:

Congress- The Electoral Connection


Party Politics in America


Political Polarization of American Politics


Interest Group Politics


Obviously this is quite a bit to read- but renting or using library resources will soften the blow to your wallet.

If I have misread your question, and you are interested in policy rather than politics, more recommendations can be provided depending on both your political persuasion and your specific interests.

PS: Assumed you meant American politics. If not- can provide other texts.

America is going to have a hard time doing it again, honestly. It definitely can't do whatever it wants. Those days are over and there's even a book about that.

https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Power-American-Exceptionalism-Project/dp/0805090169

The linked tweet was tweeted by @ggreenwald on Mar 20, 2018 11:26:53 UTC

-------------------------------------------------

Many Democrats have been led to believe this term was invented and popularized last year by Sean Hannity to help Trump. It's actually been something that serious foreign policy and government secrecy experts have discussed and analyzed for many years https://www.amazon.com/Deep-State-Government-Secrecy-Industry/dp/1118146689 https://twitter.com/Morning_Joe/status/976045546946232320

-------------------------------------------------

^• Beep boop I'm a bot • Find out more about me at /r/tweettranscriberbot/ •

If by 'best journalism on TV' you mean they read Peter Schweizer's book Throw Them All Out.

http://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Peter-Schweizer/dp/0547573146

First Past the Post

Proportional Representation

If interested, I recommend Gaming the Vote, by William Poundstone

One of the best books out there about redistricting is Rat F**ked. A must-read.

If anyone is interested in reading more about the gerrymandering on steroid that the Republicans been using since 2010 I recommend RatFuck by David Daley

https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628

> "Deep State" is Russian talk. Kremlin talk. It didn't exist before it besides on Infowars

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-State-Government-Secrecy-Industry/dp/1118146689

https://web.archive.org/web/20140102073615/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/opinion/sunday/a-wordnado-of-words-in-2013.html

Actually it came from discussions of Egyptian politics and was used by people on the left for years. I must be a Russian shill collecting paycheques from Putin by pointing this out though. Or is the shill joke only funny when liberals are making fun of paranoid morons and not leftists?

Here's one and the other is all the shit Comey said.

FWIW my post was mostly a synopsis of this book:

The Limits of Power

I read it in 2008 before the "Financial Crisis". It probably had a lot more impact back then because it predicted the mess we're in now before it was common knowledge - I'm always impressed by books that predict the immediate future.

It's still worth reading IMO.

One of the most interesting aspects of this book is that the author is a self-proclaimed conservative who vilifies Reagan as a "Fraud Conservative".

He makes a very convincing case that so many of the problems we have today are due to the fact that Republicans talk like fiscal conservatives but spend like drunken sailors.

In other words, fiscal conservatism is scientifically and historically the most defensible aspect of conservative ideology.

And it is precisely this aspect of conservatism that modern "conservatives" militantly ignore.

Pat McCrory was a pretty decent Republican mayor in Charlotte as a counter balance to the Dem controlled city council & county board of commissioners. He was likable and worked across the aisle to get things done. When he won the governorship the N.C. legislature had a supermajority due to gerrymandered districts and had been drunk with power. McCory was ill prepared. Art Pope, a long-time right-wing operative, became his chief of staff like Cheney was to Bush. McCrory went along with Art Pope's reckless ideas and never pushed back to the wacko republican legislature and lost his soul.

Charlotte Observer columnist Mark Washburn nets out McCrory's astonishing record. Eleven nice words to describe the reign of Gov. McCrory

North Carolina is a purple state suffering from gerrymandered districts that followed the 2010 census as are these states: Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Here a good book on subject:
Rat F*cked

One of the first things I've used my bitcoin for! So cool to pay with my phone and see it instantly verified on the site. Anyways, if you haven't had the chance to read Lessig's book, Republic Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress, I highly recommend getting a copy. I'd consider it one of the most important political books I've ever read. Quick read too!

They have indeed. This book lays out exactly how they did it too. Here's a hint: it wasn't because they had better candidates. They simply saw an opportunity to redraw all the maps... and took it.

Pretty evil stuff if you ask me.

It was front page news several weeks ago, and the man who wrote the book about all of this is enjoying a few weeks on the bestseller's list.

She already did stuff - its well documented. In fact, there is a book about it.

https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296

Liberals don't care about it.

Why would I care about a Trump surrogate trying to make money?

The biggest threat facing our country is globalism and that is why Trump literally saved our country.

Very good book on the matter.

Thanks, Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count

Clinton Cash is a better choice.

https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296

https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296?tag=nypost-20
There's even a book about various tracked and checked governments and countries that have done what every proper government would do, and in which the US are true masters.

Anyone interested in the 2010 redistricting that insured republican majorities should take a look at this

Ratfucking is like political subterfuge. Nowadays it usually refers to super gerrymandered districts. David Daley, the EiC of Salon, wrote a book with the same title. Good book, if disheartening, but it was the first time I had ever heard the term. Not sure how widespread it is.

> The government now serves the will of the rich lobbyist groups.

You are not the only one to say that!

This book was written in 2012-- have you read it?

Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It

Yes, you are correct. That's a big issue.

I haven't read the book yet, but I really should.

I would recommend reading Andrew J. Bacevich's book, “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism,” or at least a review. One of the striking things about his 2008 book is that he refers to the "imperial president" which now seems prescient.

Something like http://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Out-Politicians/dp/0547573146?

Hmm... Try contacting the office of your state rep to confirm, or the state AG's office. That's pretty shady, considering how REDMAP and other private firms have been able to get their hands on all the registrations.

Also I highly recommend the book Ratfucked if you want to really learn about REDMAP and the other scams.

But that's the thing - people didn't think they were voting against their interests. Trump promised jobs. He promised action. He promised to shake things up. He reached out to a segment of the population that has felt left out, and told them that what they've been through is horrible, and he can make it better. And he gave them a boogeyman in the news and "PC Culture".

I think you'd be surprised at how much of the country still is OK with racism. Still believes in white supremacy. They may not state that they are racist, but their policies and behaviors show they are.

Also, don't underestimate what happened the last couple of weeks of the election. Those letters, and subsequent gobbling up by the media is likely what pushed all of this over the edge.

Finally, read this book which goes into the strategy the GOP used to Gerrymander districts which made this no field day.

>She already did stuff - its well documented. In fact, there is a book about it.
>
>https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296
>
>Liberals don't care about it.

Because it's plain and simply put not true. There's not a good damn thing about any of those claims that has been verified. At all.

>The biggest threat facing our country is globalism and that is why Trump literally saved our country.

Globalism is what made America rich.

You don't honestly think we did this by ourselves, do you?

The FBI was tipped off by a (NYT bestselling) book?

Ok. That explains a lot

If we want real third parties, we need to change how our electoral system works. Our current system just guarantees that if three candidates run, the first choice will never win.

http://rangevoting.org/

http://www.amazon.com/Gaming-Vote-Elections-Arent-ebook/dp/B003K154R0/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1381631276

>Hi reddit!
>
>In advance of this year's national election, AAAS is bringing together scientists who have studied how people make up their minds about political issues and, once their opinions are set, how people can change their views.
>
>Science Magazine has published a few articles on this topic in 2016. One paper, by Noah Friedkin, explored the question "how do some beliefs within groups persist in the face of social pressure, whereas others change and, by changing, influence a cascade of other beliefs?" Another written by two of us, David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, describes our field experiment that showed that 1 in 10 Miami voters shifted their attitudes toward transgender individuals and maintained those changed positions for 3 months.
>
>We are joined by Drs. Samara Klar and Yanna Krupnikov, authors of "Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction."
>
>In the final weekend before the election, we suspect that many family and friends will be speaking about issues that are important to them. Ask us anything on the science of political persuasion!
>
>Dr. David Broockman is Assistant Professor of Political Economy, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
>
>Joshua Kalla is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at University of California, Berkeley
>
>Dr. Samara Klar is Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Arizona.
>
>Dr. Yanna Krupnikov is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University.
>
>We’ll be back at noon EST (9 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything!

>Hi reddit!
>
>In advance of this year's national election, AAAS is bringing together scientists who have studied how people make up their minds about political issues and, once their opinions are set, how people can change their views.
>
>Science Magazine has published a few articles on this topic in 2016. One paper, by Noah Friedkin, explored the question "how do some beliefs within groups persist in the face of social pressure, whereas others change and, by changing, influence a cascade of other beliefs?" Another written by two of us, David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, describes our field experiment that showed that 1 in 10 Miami voters shifted their attitudes toward transgender individuals and maintained those changed positions for 3 months.
>
>We are joined by Drs. Samara Klar and Yanna Krupnikov, authors of "Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Parties Leads to Political Inaction."
>
>In the final weekend before the election, we suspect that many family and friends will be speaking about issues that are important to them. Ask us anything on the science of political persuasion!
>
>Dr. David Broockman is Assistant Professor of Political Economy, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
>
>Joshua Kalla is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at University of California, Berkeley
>
>Dr. Samara Klar is Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Arizona.
>
>Dr. Yanna Krupnikov is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University.
>
>We’ll be back at noon EST (9 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything!

There is literally evidence a simple google search away, but I guess it's easier to sit there with your fingers in your ears and going la la la.

Selling tainted blood

Uranium One was Clinton turning over control of most of USA uranium deposits to the Russians. It's akin to Obama selling control of our ports to the Chinese. While not illegal, it's a bit fucked.

Haiti Under Clinton: $1,300,000,000 in aid. 0.6% went to Haitian Organizations. 9.6% to the government. During this time Hilary's brother tried to open a gold mine using funds from The Clinton Foundation. Instead of rebuilding, they spent millions on a fee based system where you can use cell phone credits to pay for goods.

Would you like to know more?

There's no end to their corruption.

I have no idea how you managed to get that from that presentation.

1. XKeyscore was not a secret before the release. It was described in a fair amount of detail in a book published in April of this year, before Snowden even came on the scene. This one to be precise.
   
   
2. XKeyscore is a front end database access program. It doesn't have anything to do with the collection of information, only the presentation of it. Here is the author of that book describing it. He emphasizes that someone can only be targeted if the NSA has already targeted them for information gathering.
   
   
3. They most likely are storing metadata around internet usage. There was nothing that suggests they are storing records of everyone's activity or communications.

See the book "Ratfucked" by David Daley, where he lays out exactly how it was done.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ratf-ked-david-daley/1123515748

https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483937743&sr=8-1&keywords=Ratfucked

https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296/

Here is where all of the "proof" comes from

As stated in this segment, it is based research done in this book, http://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Peter-Schweizer/dp/0547573146/?tag=wwwbreitbartc-20 . The book probably should be required reading.

Also read http://www.amazon.com/Limits-Power-End-American-Exceptionalism/dp/0805088156

The thing is this is a somewhat new thing https://www.amazon.com/Business-America-Lobbying-Corporations-Politicized/dp/0190215518

https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296

This book is entirely about Gerrymandering and is something every American should read.

Then read this

https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296

Here's one to start with Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich

Follow the money. The Clintons have hundreds of millions from Russia but they just seem to get a pass.

> project Red Map

also "Ratf**ked":

David Daley’s “extraordinarily timely” (New York Times Book Review) account uncovers the fundamental rigging of our House of Representatives and state legislatures nationwide.

https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Your-Doesnt-Count/dp/1631493213/

As far as sources go, this book is replete with them. https://www(dot)amazon(dot)com/Clinton-Cash-Foreign-Governments-Businesses/dp/0062369296

Two books on the public policy process:

Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies by John W. Kingdon

Public Policymaking by James E. Anderson

Here's a good book to start with.

Edit: The only thing people can say is "hur dur right wing" because facts and morals do not matter to these scumbags.

Toilet cleaning should be a privilege for these jackals. They deserve to be on a chain gang turning big rocks into smaller rocks. Read "throw them all out" by Peter Schweizer to learn about how nearly all of our elected officials are straight up criminals, via insider trading and other shady deals they all conduct.

The term originated in Turkey, actually, and has been used a lot by academics. I'm not sure when it first worked its way into US political discourse -- at least by 2013 when this book came out.

Popular Vote went Clinton - Meaning in vote total she won by 3 million votes. but that doesnt matter.


GOP Quotes of the Effect of REDMAP on the election - Your Party speaking on boundary movement.



Extra Reading:
NPR

Ney Yorker

Book (RatF**ked)

I'm not blaming anything, the GOP used american systems well to win the race. But don't act like you know shit, and as much as Hillary makes people awful people trump is a dumbass candidate making you a dumbass. Learn to spell, learn how the race was won, and learn more you uneducated mong.

They're the ones fighting against the gerrymandering that has the House on permanent lock down for the traitorous GOP. Traditional dems may accept corporate hand outs for favorable policy, but there is a mountain of difference between that and accepting aid from foreign intelligence agencies to sabotage your opponents so you can install a religious oligarchy. I can tell you which one is both more dangerous for our democracy and more immediate! Get the ducks in the right row here. There is a reason the GOP is talking about "illegal voter fraud". They are trying to cement in a one party state that has the veneer of legitimacy.

People massively underestimate just how badly things have been gerrymandered. I just finished this book, Ratfucked a few hours ago:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016APOCRU/

To win at the ballot box would take a monumental wave of turnout. Something that doesn't happen on off-presidential years.

More importantly, it requires a rethinking of the entire districting system in the US (and UK for that matter) which encourages this shit to get worse and worse every ten years.

Recommended reading for those interested

Per the Constitution, states control the way they arrive at their districts. Most states leave it up to the legislature with occasional governor input (Wisconsin). The legislatures even gerrymander the legislature's districts. That's why you have supermajorities in states that aren't really that partisan. To combat this, there are several means.

That's an awesome list. I'd echo that the two very best sources to learn about the exact crimes committed leading up to the financial crisis are The Untouchables and
Inside Job.

And I'd add a third:
Predator Nation (written by the guy who made Inside Job)

If people just want a single source, The Untouchables is where they should go. It shows how banks sold products they knew were defective. That is fraud, and it is criminal. Simple as that. The executives were knowingly selling those products (and there were many) should be in jail.

Here's a fuller list of selections I can recommend from a reading list at TooBigHasFailed.org. Any of these sources are good for learning what was going on leading up to the crash.

Podcasts

NPR: The Giant Pool of Money |
NPR: Return to the Giant Pool of Money |
NPR: Another Frightening Show about the Economy |
EconTalk interview w/ Simon Johnson

Documentaries

Addendum to Inside Job |
PBS: Money, Power, & Wall Street |
Aljazeera: Meltdown |
60 Minutes: The Speed Traders |
Quants: The Alchemists of Wall Street

Books

I.O.U. - John Lanchester |
Griftopia - Matt Taibbi |
Infectious Greed - Frank Partnoy |
All the Devils are Here - Joe Nocera & Bethany McLean |
Traders, Guns, and Money - Satyajit Das |
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report

ETA: I see that a moderator here is requesting academic sources. Here are three good ones: Fault Lines - Raghuram Rajan | Republic, Lost - Lawrence Lessig | This Time Is Different - Reinhart & Rogoff

To be honest, most of the academic sources I've read don't focus on criminality on Wall Street. I'd love to find more that do, though.

I remember when that book came out detailing the insider trading and horrible corruption going on in the halls of Congress. As I recall, 75% of the politicians mentioned negatively in the book are Democrats with the remainder obviously being Republicans. Guess who /r/politics ragged on . . .

If you really want to lose your mind at how bad it is, read this book. It’s insane what they’re legally allowed to get away with.

https://www.amazon.com/Throw-Them-All-Out-Politicians/dp/0547573146

Ed Gillespie is the architect of modern gerrymandering. He is directly responsible for the mess we're in right now - the rise of donald trump and white nationalism. Without ed Gillespie, we would have had fair elections, we'd have fair representation in congress, and the few wouldn't be in control of hte many.

Im sorry poor Ed is getting "unfairly" judged as a racist extremist, but his policy of disenfranchising poor, black, uneducated voters, is something that a racist extremist would think up.

> Gillespie was chairman of the Republican State Leadership Conference, the national organization that supplied the money and minds necessary to install GOP majorities in the state legislatures, which, in turn, draw congressional seats.

> Because Republicans now hold two-thirds of the nation’s legislative chambers, it is no surprise that they are comfortably in charge of the U.S. House of Representatives.

http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/jeff-schapiro/schapiro-va-republicans-on-defense-over-redistricting/article_52ebb4a6-089d-5d1e-bd2f-737bc9ba86b6.html

https://www.amazon.com/Ratf-ked-Behind-Americas-Democracy/dp/1631491628/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506446330&sr=1-1&keywords=9781631491627

No worries, and I appreciate the difficulty of asking a seemingly charged question but intending neutrality; the way your original question was worded brought to mind a number of different theories or areas of social science research, and it was difficult to pin down.

So, for your first point, there is not specific research I am aware of that could measure that sort of thing directly, as the causal mechanism (the leader's espousal of an opinion) would be extremely difficult to isolate from an entire universe of other potential causes.

What this does bring to mind, however, is a body of research known as Agenda Setting in Public Policy research. Broadly, this is a theory which describes how different problems or policy alternatives get pushed from the available pool to the ultimate decision making process, and leadership plays an important role in the promotion of problems. Classics in this area are Kingdon and Cobb and Elder (1983).

On your second point, while a number of other strands of social science research come to mind, I'm not sure there's anything on point that would provide much clarity.

The core of the problem with these claims (e.g. Rhetoric used in the 2016 US Presidential Election causes a spike in recruitment for extremist organizations in the Middle East), and what makes them difficult to answer is that there are too many variables to control for which makes it difficult to get leverage on the problem or a 'clean' answer.

I hope this helps!

edit: minor clarity/specificity

The problem with the world is, there are way too many people that have been apathetic for too long about political corruption. It's start to demand change at every level of Government, which means kicking out all incumbants and anyone that was so much affiliated with anyone participating in any type of Fraud, Waste, or outright Abuse. Anytime anyone in government commits fraud, they should immediately be forced to resign, or should be voted out in the next election cycle.